Did you hate those cheesy PBS after-school specials when you were a kid? The ones where the smallest conflict was made into a volcanic crisis but all was miraculously solved within a half an hour's time? If your answer is "yes", stay away from The Amati Girls.

Written and directed by Anne De Salvo, this sickeningly saccharine 91 minutes revolves around a supposedly tight-knit, triple-generation family of women. Each character embodies the ultimate in annoying stereotypes, from selfless martyr to irresponsible wanderer. And of course, they each have a male in their life to represent the standard issues of women's liberation from 30 years ago.

Unabashedly, this is a bad horror film. But it succeeds in its badness, and it's actually quite watchable, and funny. Stolen wholesale from an episode of The Twilight Zone, Child's Play spawned a franchise that, 10 years later, is still going strong. Oy.

Before Good Will Hunting turned psychiatry into pop culture and before The Ice Storm made suburban angst into a fashion show, Ordinary People opened the eyes of all of us. A bitter and heart-wrenching tale of teen suicide and alienation, Timothy Hutton takes center stage as Conrad Jarrett, a troubled teenager trying to cope with the accidental death of his big brother -- and not doing a good job of it. In fact, he tried to "off himself" and, having not succeeded, he finds himself the sole exhibition in a virtual and delicate menagerie for his friends and his parents.

We soon see that Conrad's problems run deep, as what should be quaint little interactions between he and doting mom (Mary Tyler Moore, excellent here), or he and imperviously upbeat dad (Donald Sutherland, ditto) turn perverse and creepy. His shrink (Judd Hirsch) doesn't offer any "It's not your fault" platitudes, leaving Conrad's healing process up to himself. The only joy he finds is with his new girl Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern, in her second role ever), who would be perfectly cast -- except she looks too much like Karen (Dinah Manoff), Conrad's friend from the hospital.